"One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds, and not unfrequently brother took up arms against brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might trust to the rites of hospitality, and many a man laid his head upon his pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger might not invade him in the secret watches of the night, and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the blaze of their farm yards, to which the incendiary torch had been applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading the confident into the toils of war--nor is it possible to imagine a state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity." It will here be seen at a glance that the novelist has been peculiarly fortunate in the choice of an epoch, a scene and a subject. We sincerely think that he has done them all the fullest justice, and has worked out, with these and with other materials, a book of no ordinary character. We do not wish to attempt any analysis of the story itself--or that connecting chain which unites into one proper whole the varied events of the novel. We feel that in so doing, we should, in some measure, mar the interest by anticipation; a grievous sin too often indulged in by reviewers, and against which, should we ever be so lucky as to write a book, we would protest with all our hearts. But we may be allowed a word or two. The principal character in the novel, upon whom the chief interest of the story turns, and who, in accordance with the right usage of novel writing, should be considered the hero, and should have given a title to the book, is Brevet Major Arthur Butler of the continental army, to whose acquaintance we are first introduced about two o'clock in the afternoon of a day towards the end of July, 1780. But Mr. K. has ventured, at his own peril, to set at defiance the common ideas of propriety in this important matter, and, not having the fear of the critic before his eyes, has thought it better to call his work by the name of a very singular personage, whom all readers will agree in pronouncing worthy of the honor thus conferred upon him. The writer has also made another innovation. He has begun at the beginning. We all know this to be an unusual method of procedure. It has been too, for some time past, the